Report: Google plans to open brick-and-mortar stores in India

According to a report from Economic Times, Google is planning to open brick-and-mortar stores to boost sales of its Pixel smartphones in India, the world's second largest smartphone market where the company is lagging behind competition, when compared to tech giants Samsung and Apple, as well as Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, vivo and Oppo.The report further says that the company aims to launch these store in late 2018, along with experience center. The move comes after the positive response the company has seen at more than a dozen pop-up stores that it opened in malls in recent weeks across Mumbai and Delhi-NCR region.Google has reportedly sent a request to two malls in the country seeking space to setup Google store. These stores is said to serve as experience centres, where consumers can get hands-on physical demo of the phone and get educated about its features, in addition to purchasing products. There are some features of the Pixel phones that can't be explained or demoed online. For instance, to explain the low-light photography function of Pixel 2 phones, Google had set-up a dark room in its pop-up stores. And this is one of the reason why Google is opting for offline stores.Apart from the Pixel phone, Google is expected to sell other products like Home speaker, Chrome Cast, Daydream View headset, Chromebook and more in the store.